Archive for the 'Ducks Prospects' Tag Under 'Ducks' Category

Ducks prospects Shea Theodore and Nick Ritchie, the club's first-round picks in the last two NHL drafts, made the final roster for Canada in the upcoming IIHF World Junior Championship.

Theodore and Ritchie will try to help Canada snap a five-year gold medal drought when the tournament begins Dec. 26 in Montreal and Toronto. Canada's last medal was a bronze in 2012.

Both are back with their junior teams this season. Before he was released to play for his country, Theodore had two goals and six assists in 10 games with the Western Hockey League's Seattle Thunderbirds.

During an conditioning stint in the American Hockey League, Theodore also had three goals and two assists in five games for Norfolk (Va.). Theodore, 19, was the WHL's top scoring defenseman last season.

ANAHEIM -- The Ducks cleared away some of their surplus of forwards by sending winger Emerson Etem and center William Karlsson to Norfolk (Va.) of the American Hockey League.

Etem has two goals, two assists and a minus-4 rating in 21 games with the Ducks. The Long Beach native was scratched for the first time Sunday and his spot appeared to be in jeopardy once the Ducks acquired veteran Rene Bourque.

Karlsson, who returned to practice Monday after a nasty bout with the stomach flu, had two goals and one assist in 16 games. Both goals came in his second NHL game on April 13 in Buffalo.

ANAHEIM -- The Ducks put leading goal scorer Corey Perry on injured reserve Sunday as the winger continues to be saddled with flu-like symptoms.

Perry will miss his third consecutive game when the Ducks take on Vancouver at Honda Center. He can be eligible to return for Wednesday's home game against the Kings.

Perry has 11 goals to lead the Ducks, which also tie him with Rick Nash of the New York Rangers for the NHL lead.

The Ducks also called up defenseman Mat Clark from Norfolk (Va.) of the American Hockey League to help fill holes on the blue line. Francois Beauchemin also has the flu and is very doubtful to play against the Canucks while Cam Fowler (lower body) is a question mark.

ANAHEIM -- Stefan Noesen, Nic Kerdiles and Max Friberg are all back in Virginia now preparing for an American Hockey League season with the Norfolk Admirals.

It doesn't mean they'll stay there the entire time.

The Ducks used 30 skaters in 2013-14, 19 of whom were forwards. Injuries and disenchantment with some players invariably occur over an 82-game season and it means there will be call-ups from the minors.

Noesen, Kerdiles and Friberg are solid-to-strong prospects in the organization and all figure to play a lot with the Admirals. It could happen where at least one of the three is summoned by the Ducks.

The Ducks further trimmed their training camp roster Wednesday by assigning four players to their American Hockey League in Norfolk, Va.

Defensemen Mat Clark and Jesse Blacker were sent to the Admirals along with winger Max Friberg and center Chris Wagner.

The Ducks now have 28 players and will need to get to 23 in a week. Among those that remain are centers William Karlsson and Rickard Rakell, defensemen Josh Manson and Shea Theodore and goaltender Jason LaBarbera.

On Monday, the Ducks sent out 16 players with first-round pick Nick Ritchie heading back to Peterborough of the Ontario Hockey League. Right wing Stefan Noesen, defenseman Andrew O'Brien, left wing Nic Kerdiles and goalie Igor Bobkov were among those sent to Norfolk.

Forward Brandon Yip was also released from his pro tryout. Yip has NHL experience with Colorado, Phoenix and Nashville.

ANAHEIM – With three quick flicks of his wrist, Nic Kerdiles had the capacity crowds at Anaheim Ice cheering those moments and salivating about the future.

Mind you, Kerdiles wasn’t snapping shots by Jonathan Quick or Antti Niemi or Ryan Miller. The goalies weren’t even John Gibson and Frederik Andersen, the two who should man the net for the Ducks in 2014-15.

These were two intrasquad scrimmages during the club’s development camp last month. But the “goal scorer’s goals” as NHL coaches often refer to only whetted the appetites of those monitoring the talented Ducks prospect, whose arrival might be sooner than you think.

The feeling with the organization is that Kerdiles is quickly moving up the ladder despite scant experience as a pro.

Not a first-round draft pick and never the prized prospect, Pat Maroon was getting to the point where the dream of reaching the NHL and sticking around was starting to slip further out of view.

Maroon worked and persisted, finally sticking with the Ducks for a good part of the lockout-shortened 2012-13 season. It now appears at age 26 that the big winger is going to stay for a while.

The Ducks rewarded Maroon's hard work in becoming an everyday player by signing him Saturday to a three-year contract extension worth $6 million.

Maroon will make $575,000 this coming season to finish off his current contract. His salary will jump to $1.9 million in 2015-16, $2 million in 2016-17 and $2.1 million in 2017-18, according to CapGeek.com.

ANAHEIM -- Martin Madden is the Ducks' resident lead honcho when it comes to the NHL draft and he's been on a pretty good run the last few years, with his staff identifying talent that has not only reached the parent club but become contributors.

Like others in his capacity, Madden is going to talk up his draft selections. You probably don't want to hear him running down the list of flaws on players the Ducks are bringing into the organization.

But not every draft pick is referred to as a "home-run type of selection." Back in late June, Madden applied that to defenseman Brandon Montour, the second of two picks the Ducks had in the second round.

"He’s an interesting story," Madden said then. "He was playing on his junior team last year, he played as much forward as he did defense. Then he moved to the USHL [United States Hockey League] and he just blew that league wide open from the defense in terms of his offense.

That’s the outlook Shea Theodore is taking into the remainder of the summer as the Ducks’ top prospect on defense heads into an important year of hockey on his road toward the NHL.

An impressive debut at his first Ducks training camp last fall showed why he was a first-round pick. A brief stint with the Norfolk Admirals in the Calder Cup playoffs showed that he’s ready for the American Hockey League when he's eligible.

And a standout final year with the Western Hockey League’s Seattle Thunderbirds showed that Theodore has the goods to represent Canada in the next World Junior Hockey Championships.

“Every Canadian wants to play in the world juniors over Christmas,” Theodore said at the Ducks' development camp in early July. “I know I’ve watched it in the past I don’t know how many years in a row. I was a little disappointed last year that I didn’t even get an invite.

ANAHEIM -- The season for Stefan Noesen looked to be over before it started but that wasn’t how the winger would see it.

A quick look at 2013-14 for Noesen might be classified as a lost cause given that he tore the major ligaments in his left knee just two games into his first season in the American Hockey League.

What followed were the necessary surgery to repair his ACL and MCL and then seven months of tedious and equally necessary rehabilitation work that kept him out of the Norfolk Admirals’ lineup for the remaining 74 games of the regular season.

Noesen missed another six contests to start the playoffs but by then he was pushing to get back to competition if his Admirals teammates could keep their season going. They did and the winger found himself back in action.